Saturday, April 25, 2009

Dr. Juan R. S. Yelanguezian K. P. is an Argentinian-Armenian composer, musicologist, author and plastic artist. In addition he has translated Dora Sakayan's Esmirna 1922: Entre Fuego, El Sable Y El Agua (El Diario Del Dr. Hatcherian), Montreal 2001. He is a third generation descendant of traditional families from Cilicia (Tarsos, Adana & Marash) and Thrace (Xanthi), His mother was born in Athens, and his father in Beirut. He has travelled extensively, educated in Argentina and Armenia. His works are much appreciated, and he has earned several awards both in his birthplace and elsewhere.

Keghart.com is pleased to present two of his poems (In Spanish and translated into English) from the Madagh cycle of his collection of poems Arian, Antología Poética, Buenos Aires, 1994.

Still as an eternal classical statue his marble face,of harmonious features, his diminute body and his slender handsIn the epitaph of the silence of the vigil, I hear his voicethat together with his heart are the only vestiges of his life.A song rises to his lips that have sung so often,a deep song that comes from viscera, almost inexistent nowand the balm of his atmospheric voice fills the space,building the architecture of its temple of sound.

Whilst his people have been dying fighting for their life,his inertia is life itself battling with his art,the only weapon of his that could never fail,even though his eternal sleep may encroach more and moreupon the shadows of Hades,and the mist hide the delicate featuresof his unique face.

And his people continue to fightto obtain their libertyas does his soul for its libertyin Eternity.

The immortal liberty of his Landcauses him to rebel.

And he emits from his inert body’s beda whispered thank you to my ears,which wrenches my soul which I thought braveand brings nearer the peace of his sleep which longs to be eternal.

Like the eternal sleep of the life of menwho battle for their dignity, whether they burn in the heat of flames or are consumedby cold, hunger and thirst.

I lie down next to his still body,lean my head on his shoulderand tell him my dreamswhich once were his,I tell him of the pain I went through watching the young people fall,youths of old of that ancient people.I tell him of the mountains of the country he came from,tell him of its fruits, of its waters,of the skies reached and embraced by the sunof our hands now so near to each other,of the pictures he would have paintedand the songs he would have given us;I murmur the lullabies he used to rock me withand I give him my eyes for him to see his country free,even with the blood spilled today by brothers.

And we give each other the love that we have held for each other in silencelike a subtle dream lost in the mystery of mysteries.I fall asleep on his consumed breastand his profile in one trait of an ancient Cilician comes to me,Tracian warrior, athlete from Olympia, rhapsody weaver of Taron.

My father rests his dream in preparation for the Voyagethat will gently bear him to the Infinity of the stars,in a firmament of lamps and celestial sounds,staying with me always as from the distanceof each separation and each return.

Whilst his land suffers, but becomes dignified,in a parallel voyage my father will reach the starsand his Homeland will be the new Earthly Paradise.

He hums “I yearn to see my Kilikia…”and he nears his birthplace, his cradle of open doors,the doors that will always open of his belovedArmenia.

IOrphans of Adaná, orphans of the deserts…Today mayhap citizens that know not their nationality?or men that live condemned to rootlessness?

Orphans of the mountains, music of ancestors,privilege of a world that trails ephemeral signs.Mayhap a genocide can obliterate the Armenian soulin the cruelty of the factsfacts turned legend for fear of suffering?

Orphans of your winds, your stones and your sky.We drown in the bluelined haze of memories.

Orphaned of your dialogue we wake to the sunand sing the hymns to the new day.

Subtle mystery not to own you.Void that drags us in a mystic space,the absence of our dead.In the darkness we no longer hear their steps,neither do their voices call us, nor their eyes light up. Our orphaned elders keep silentthe horror of their pleas,others carried them in secret to the ends ofthe darkness We submerge ourselves in the sensitive encounter ofseeing ourselves mutilatedparadoxic ripping, sacrifice of thousands,ancestral wine of our uncertain madagh.Slow sacrifice of a people orphaned from their mutilatedsoil,mutilated spirit, mutilated echo.

(I adhere to the gloom of the silence of the old housethat my grandfather built with his own hands,mutilated hands, orphaned at Tarso.I am oppressed by the murmur of screams from another timemayhap I will lean toward the climax and embrace itbecause it managed to create with its seed a new worldbehind the hell).

IIOrphaned from the mysteries of our parentsfrom watching the faraway growth of the ancestral home.Orphans of uncertainties and vital encounter.(Love; neither made, nor spoken).Orphans of love, daily earthlyrootlessness, has it perhaps been a natural sacrificethat has led our people to lavish a living futureby donating their lives in exile?

Orphans of Marash, does the breeze still playthe stringsof your violin, and do not your melodies drownin a litany of mystery?(I would have to be tied and made deaf, to the tallest mastof my life, for me not to hear and draw near to the sortilegeof your songs).

Orphans of Der el Zor, those voices pursue meas shared encounters of painand draw near as talesof a history we had no wish to live.And they draw near like the sharp edge of sables slashingbodies,just the swish of sables like an arrhythmic game ofmassacre,that shape metallic murmurs in the atmospheric immensityof the sordidly beautiful landscape.

Orphans! the blasts have not detonatedbut death smothered in the silence,as an organ of the body rotsand in appearance one continues to live.

Orphaned by banishments,disintegrated families lost in misfortune,children that never knew the destiny of their siblings,women who never gave themselves up and marrieddeath, eyes from Masís that are not aware they are Armenian.

Orphans.Unfathomable mystery of a lifethat demands such a sacrifice in order that a people live.

(The peasant whose heart was pierced through the Gospelshe clutched to his breastand who fell into the furrow he dug himself.The glinting dagger that sharpmurdered the mother of a friend.The home in flames, the nightly fleeing,the port of Smyrna set afireand only the void of the silenceover the twilight bodiessole silence).

Orphans we still wake up and prayin our intimate prayer,we intone hymns thanking for the light of dawnand we breakfast on work and creed.We interlace our bloodso that the longed for son will be bornand we give him our subdued affection,our myths, our prayers.And not only our letters,also our lullabies rocking old dreams.

Our joy is as ancient as our verses.Our pain is as ancient as our songs.We invoke the brightness of our open spaces.

Orphans, yes, from our soilMayhap mysterious musicians of exile?Mayhap carriers of our spirit of cerealthat germinates in the universe?Does not a sheaf of hope sustain usin the knowledge that the birdsarrive without announcing themselves?